Once Is Not Enough (1975)

The young daughter (Deborah Raffin) of an Oscar winning film producer (Kirk Douglas) has an Oedipal fixation. When the father remarries to one of the world's wealthiest women (Alexis Smith), she finds a romantic replacement in the form of an older, alcoholic novelist (David Janssen) who her father detests. Based on the best selling potboiler by Jacqueline Susann (it was the second best selling novel of 1973), this is near irresistible glam trash. Beautiful, rich people in large elegant penthouses, the Plaza and Waldorf Astoria in New York, the Beverly Hills Hotel, Switzerland and Spain, mysterious Garbo-esque actresses (Melina Mercouri), playboys (George Hamilton) with bordello red bedrooms etc. All accompanied by Susann's purple prose while Henry Mancini's lush score provides the mood. It doesn't reach the delirious heights of VALLEY OF THE DOLLS or THE CARPETBAGGERS but it'll do. Curiously the film seems reticent in its hetero sex scenes but titillates with a lesbian love scene between Smith and Mercouri which must have seemed daring in 1975. Directed by Guy Green. With Brenda Vaccaro (in an Oscar nominated performance) as a potty mouthed, promiscuous magazine editor, Gary Conway and Lillian Randolph.